They may not be prowling the seas or sporting peg legs and eye patches anymore, but pirates still abound in this day and age. iPods and other MP3 players, mobile phones, software... heck, even designer jeans aren't safe. However, hardware pirates in particular have another force to contend with: The EPIC microchip locking system.

EPIC, short for Ending Piracy of Integrated Circuits, is a new technique developed by computer engineers at the University of Michigan and Rice University. Michigan computer engineering doctoral student Jarrod Roy will present a paper on EPIC at the Design Automation and Test in Europe conference in Germany on March 13.

A chip armed with EPIC protection will feature a few extra switches. Kind of like a combination lock. Instead of an ID number, the chip would come with tools needed to produce a 64-bit random identification number. To make a chip work, the manufacturer would plug it in and let it contact the patent owner over an ordinary phone line or Internet connection.

While there are still ways to illegally copy chips protected by EPIC, the new locking technique would make it very difficult and costly. Said Igor Markov, a co-author on the EPIC paper: "The goal of a practical system like ours is not to make something impossible, but to ensure that buying a license and producing the chip legally is cheaper than forgery."